Montreal wants to develop nearly 4,000 new housing units and triple the number of jobs in the Bridge-Bonaventure sector, the redevelopment of which has been under discussion for several years now. The Plante administration has also already committed, this fall, to creating a riverside promenade. But the first works will not take place before 2024.
Posted at 10:21 a.m.
“We arrive with a balanced vision, which recognizes the identity of the sector, but which also allows for urban renewal”, affirms the person in charge of urban planning files on the executive committee, Robert Beaudry, who presented Tuesday his “preliminary vision” for Bridge-Bonaventure, interviewed at The Press.
He puts the number of new units that could be built in the area, around the Wellington basin, at 3,800, including 1,270 social and affordable housing units as well as 320 family units.
The creation of “many green spaces” is also at the heart of the preliminary vision of the City, which would also like to see an REM station in the area. In October, during the election campaign, Mayor Valérie Plante had promised to create a riverside promenade on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Montreal therefore proposes to create “48 hectares of new public green spaces” and five kilometers of shoreline, along the river and the Lachine Canal. A dozen kilometers of bike paths would also be added on either side of the new promenade.
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“What we would like are safe and accessible walks for everyone. So that implies a certain revision of the space. The current industry is an asset, but it also generates nuisances. The objective would therefore be to direct trucking traffic towards the main transit axes, for example the Bonaventure Expressway, and therefore really to use the higher network more than the small streets,” agrees Mr. Beaudry, adding that the new housing would also be developed on the local network, “not too close to heavy industries”.
The stadium “not on the agenda”
For now, the City’s plan does not include businessman Stephen Bronfman’s baseball stadium project. The latter had however been very optimistic at the idea of seeing his project materialize, last December, after a meeting with the mayor Valérie Plante. “It is a major input for the sector, but currently, we understand that the project is not on the agenda, so we are working with our vision on economic development,” Mr. Beaudry briefly confided to this subject.
Above all, he says he aims to “triple the number of jobs” in the Bridge-Bonaventure sector, which currently has 2,000 through some fifty companies. “We want to get to around 6,500, focusing in particular on clean technologies, cultural and tourism-related businesses, crafts. We have a capacity of 455,000 square meters for economic development,” he said.
To attract more employers, the City also intends to “capitalize” on major players that are already well established, such as the Port of Montreal, the ADM flour mill, the Forges de Montréal or MELS industries. “The strategy is going to be to join small businesses that have an interest in being close to these big players,” says the elected municipal official on this subject.
Montreal wants to submit its final plan “by the fall” to the Office de consultation publique (OCPM), so that the population can decide. The exercise had already been carried out between 2019 and 2020. This time, the City aims to adopt a regulation as early as 2023, to start work in 2024. The real estate projects could be launched in mid-2025, or even at the beginning 2026.